iWorld
Watcho drops ‘Autumn and The Black Jaguar’ on Fliqs
MUMBAI : What do you get when a gutsy girl reunites with a jaguar to save her Amazonian village from smugglers? A wild ride, quite literally. Watcho’s streaming platform FLIQS has just premiered Autumn and The Black Jaguar, a visually rich comedy-adventure film, now available in Hindi and English for Rs 79.
Directed by Gilles de Maistre, the film follows Autumn (played by Lumi Pollack) — a fierce teen with a cause, who returns to her rainforest roots to take on animal traffickers. With her loyal jaguar in tow, she embarks on a heart-thumping journey filled with friendship, grit, and ecological urgency. The cast also features Emily Bett Rickards and Wayne Charles Baker.
Dish TV chief revenue officer, Sukhpreet Singh said, “Fliqs was built with a clear vision to give great stories and creators the space they truly deserve. Every week, we are bringing fresh, diverse titles across genres and languages to our audience. It is exciting to see content like ‘Autumn and The Black Jaguar’ find a home on Fliqs, where storytelling takes centre stage and creators get a platform that values their voice.”
The title is the latest headliner on Fliqs, Dish TV India’s premium digital content vertical within the Watcho app. Positioned as an OTT-style destination, Fliqs curates original web series, short films, movies in multiple languages and more importantly, hands creators the reins with full IP rights and monetisation tools. With new drops weekly, Fliqs is steadily building a content jungle of its own.
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iWorld
Snapchat parent Snap cuts 16 per cent of workforce in AI-driven restructuring
The Snapchat parent is axing around 1,000 jobs and closing 300 open roles to save $500m, as artificial intelligence makes smaller teams the new normal
CALIFORNIA: Snap is snapping. The Snapchat parent has confirmed plans to cut around 1,000 employees, roughly 16 per cent of its full-time workforce, as it bets that artificial intelligence can do what headcount once required. Shares jumped more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on the news, a brisk vote of confidence from a market that has watched the stock shed about 31 per cent this year.
The restructuring, which also closes more than 300 open roles, follows pressure from activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which holds an economic interest of about 2.5 per cent in the company and has been loudly pushing Snap to tighten its portfolio and lift performance. The firm got what it asked for, and then some.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel told employees the cuts would reduce annualised expenses by more than $500m by the second half of the year. The company expects to incur charges of between $95m and $130m related to the layoffs, mostly severance, with the bulk landing in the second quarter. Staff in Snap’s North America team were asked to work from home on the day of the announcement.
The financial backdrop is not without bright spots. Snap expects first-quarter revenue to rise around 12 per cent to approximately $1.53 billion, broadly in line with analyst estimates. Adjusted core profit for the January to March quarter is forecast at about $233m, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s expectation of $186.8m.
The harder question surrounds Specs, Snap’s augmented reality smart glasses subsidiary, which Irenic has urged the company to spin off or shut down entirely. The unit has absorbed more than $3.5 billion in investment and burns through approximately $500m in cash annually. Snap is pressing ahead regardless, with a consumer product expected later this year, even as Meta leads the market in the segment.
Spiegel is betting that leaner teams, smarter machines and a consumer AR play can restore Snap’s credibility with investors who have run out of patience. The redundancy notices have gone out. The harder restructuring, the one that requires a hit product rather than a headcount reduction, is still very much pending.
